Want to see what success looks like? Here’s a brief interview between Crack Eraser founder Tim Evans and windshield repair business owner Drew Hayden.
TRANSCRIPT
TIM EVANS:
Hi, I am Tim Evans with Crack Eraser, and I’m Drew Hayden with Clear West Windshield Repair. So Drew, you got interested in the windshield repair business somehow. Tell us a little bit about that story.
DREW HAYDEN:
Well, I had a corporate job for about 12 years and I was just always wanted to work for myself and not really sure of what opportunities were out there. So when I came across your company, really due to my wife got to give her the credit, she told me about it, and then when I looked into it, I thought it looked really viable. It wasn’t going to be a lot of money up front, and it was something that I could sustain my family on.
TIM:
That’s awesome. So how’s it going now?
DREW:
Well, I’m four years in now. It’s looking great. I’m averaging about six customers a day. That’s great. Some days or more, some days less. But yeah, it’s been great.
TIM:
Awesome. And didn’t you tell me that your wife is now not working? She’s taking care of the kids because you’re able to support her full time? She was able to retire with the windshield business?
DREW:
Yeah.
TIM:
Oh, that is what we want to hear. That’s what we’re here for. To help guys like you. And you’re doing a lot of chip repair, I take it?
DREW:
Yeah, the majority of what I do is rock chip repair, and I’d say about 20% long-crack repair. People are always amazed when they drive up with a windshield that they think is a lost cause and I tell ’em that I can fix it. So that’s always, it makes me feel good to be able to help them out.
TIM:
I think that crack repair business will grow. It’s just people are told that it can’t be done. So if they’ve called a few places, they say, oh no, that can’t be done. And then they probably pull up and find you and they’re like, well, you advertise, you can do this and you really can do this. What happens to me?
DREW:
that’s exactly what happens. There’s that kind of a little bit of misinformation out there that if it’s over a dollar bill length, that you’re not going to be able to fix it. So it’s always surprising for people.
TIM:
And what percentage of failures have you had with your windshield repair?
DREW:
I think kind of the industry standard, probably about 1%.
TIM:
Even on the long cracks?
DREW:
Yeah, I wouldn’t say that. No. I think it’s usually a rock chip that maybe has 12 legs on it or something [that can’t be repaired].
TIM:
The cracks tend to really hold well.
DREW:
Yeah.
TIM:
And you do ’em up to 18 inches, 24 inches?
DREW:
I go up to 24. Yeah, I’ve done a little bit bigger, but you got to put something out there, I think, for the customer to just have an idea of what you can do. So I say 24 inches.
TIM:
And I would think that with a lot of these windshields being over a thousand bucks because of lane change sensors, cameras, just all the technology that they’re putting into a windshield that people would prefer to repair. It seems like deductibles are going up. Have you run into that too?
DREW:
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I’d say the average deductible I see is probably 500 if not a thousand. So for somebody to come up and find out, they can get away spending a fraction of that to get their windshield back up and running, they’re always very happy to hear that.
TIM:
Drew, we’re really pleased to have you as part of the Cracker Eraser team, we’re so happy that you’re doing so well with your business. This is exactly what we wanted to create, and hopefully we can inspire a few more people to do the same thing you did. And mostly it’s on you. I mean, I provided the technology, but you did the hard work. You made it into a successful business, and I’m really proud of you.
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